Monday, January 7, 2013

I made this salted caramel pretzel bark as a treat to bring to our holiday luncheon at work. A few people around campus know about the blog and my love of cooking (in heels!) so my bark was well-received!

I used the following recipe (retrieved and modified slightly from this recipe):

½ bag of mini pretzel twists

2 sticks of butter (1 cup total)

1 cup of brown sugar

1 3/4 cups dark chocolate chips

course kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 350, and line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Throw down a single layer of pretzels. In a saucepan (medium works best), melt the butter and brown sugar together until it is bubbly and thick. Remove it from the heat and pour it over the pretzels. It will not cover all of the pretzels! (I was really concerned, at this point, but I threw it in the oven anyway, for 5 minutes). After the caramel-oven phase, top the whole thing with chocolate chips and use a spatula to spread the chips out a little. As the original recipe suggested, I put the pan back in the oven for about 5 minutes to ensure optimal meltage. After five minutes, I gave the chocolate layer a sprinkle of course kosher salt, then put the whole thing in the freezer for 2 hours before breaking it up into bark and boxing it up!

I used slightly less chocolate (personal preference) and the bark was still plenty chocolate-y. I also went with dark chocolate (again, personal preference) and it turned out wonderfully!

I failed to take photos of the finished, broken up product, but this was SO DELICIOUS (but slightly painful to break apart - I got caught on sharp pretzel edges once or twice). And a huge hit at my holiday luncheon. Mission: Accomplished.

Another mission accomplished: shoe success!

The F - who NEVER reads my blog, btw - tracked down the (sold out at Nordstrom) Cole Haan's I'd been eye-balling and surprised me with them for Christmas. It's been a long while since I've snapped a pic of shoes on my very own feet, so here you go! Messy desk and all!